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4/21/2011 @ 6:07PM10,873 views

Move the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn

How fitting that the Los Angeles Dodgers are wearing throwback uniforms for today’s home matinee against the Atlanta Braves. Throwbacks that include a “B” on the blue cap instead of the “LA” that all but the crankiest old Brooklyn fans have grow accustomed to.

Hopefully Bud Selig was watching, because the obvious solution to his Dodgers-Mets problem was right there on his television screen. Really, it’s so obvious that it’s easy to overlook: move the Dodgers back to Brooklyn, and dissolve the Mets. Yeah, we know, as much as Angels owner Arte Moreno has been trying to make Los Angeles his solo baseball empire, leaving that big T.V. market with just one team won’t do. No problem – the virtually homeless Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays can fight each other tooth and nail to see who gets to move in. That would leave a net contraction of one team, a result that Selig has bandied about before for his over-expanded league.

Mets owner Fred Wilpon, Selig’s pal and a former Brooklyn Dodger fanatic, won’t even mind. His new pad, Citi Field, already pays more homage to the Dodgers than to the Mets. Maybe he can even become a part owner, which he’s shortly to become with the Mets anyway. It’s the move New Yorkers have been waiting and praying for since Walter O’Malley abandoned them for the west coast a couple of generations ago.

Vilified as O’Malley was back east, you really couldn’t blame him. In 1957, America was on the move. Brooklyn was the past, L.A. was the future. With his fans moving to the suburbs, and no deal with New York for a new downtown Brooklyn ballpark by Atlantic Terminal train station, what was left for O’Malley at Ebbets Field, that beloved but creaky old ballyard tucked far into Brooklyn’s crumbling residential streets? Especially when sunshine, rich land and plenty of parking awaited him off the freeway at Chavez Ravine?

But those who remind us that what goes around comes around are right. Fifty-four years after the Dodgers headed west, the cities’ rolls have reversed. Los Angeles, with its smog, bum economy, suffocating state debt and off the charts traffic, is the past. Brooklyn, with its hipsters, gentrification, revitalized brownstone neighborhoods, reformed Coney Island waterfront and soon-to-open Barclay’s Center, is the future. When the New Jersey Nets finally move in, fans are going to see the NBA in Brooklyn as the coolest thing that’s ever happened in sports.

The only thing that could be better? The prodigal son Dodgers return. That’s the sports story of the century, maybe of all time. A retro style, nouveau Ebbets Field right alongside the Barclay’s Center, completing the transformation of a depressing area into a sports nirvana. Make no mistake, fans would flock there every night. It beats Citi Field, a soulless building that’s as close to a dump as a new park can get (really, you get the feeling that the Mets looked around at the new-old style parks in Philadelphia, Colorado and elsewhere and decided, “ok, we’ll build one of those, too, just not as nice.”)

Then there are the cable riches of New York and the limitless marketing opportunities behind one of best nostalgic acts of all time. As long as the new owners go easy on the borrowing and steer clear of any Bernie Madoff types, the franchise would flourish. Note to the Dodgers: Fifty-four years is a nice run in the sun. But L.A.is looking a bit worn these days, and so are you. The town may be an upgrade for the Rays or A’s, but you’re the Dodgers. Time to thank the Mets for holding down the fort, and go home.

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There is just one fly in the ointment of your plan, the Dodgers actually own Dodger Stadium. It was part of the deal to bring the Dodgers out to LA. The Chicago Cubs had a farm team in Los Angeles, “The Angels” in the Pacific Coast League who played at “Wriggly Field” at 42nd and Avalon. The Angles had been playing in Washington Park but wanted a bigger venue and asked the city of build the park for them. The city said “hell no” and in a tiff the Angels moved out of downtown and built their own park, “just to show them”.

When the Dodgers began to make plans to move to Los Angeles, they bought the Angels operations from the Cubs, which included Wriggly Field. However, instead of expanding their existing ball park, they decided that they wanted to be closer to downtown. So they arranged a swap, Wriggly Field for Chavez Ravine including the three neighborhoods of Bishop, La Loma, and Palo Verde. The city had purchased (condemned) most of the property in the area to build public housing but the deal never went through. So they exchanged these three neighborhoods for an old 1920′s minor league baseball field (sweet deal for Branch Ricky, not so sweet of the city or the residents of Chavez Ravine).

So the Dodgers got the local folks thrown out, built their wonderful stadium, and now they own the whole thing. If the Dodgers were to go back to Brooklyn, what would they do with their nearly 50 year old stadium in Los Angeles? Build public housing on it? Sell it to Angels for their new venue once the Dodgers leave?

Branch Rickey got no such sweet deal. He didn’t even own the Dodgers at the time of the sale, and would never have even considered moving the team. I would recommend to the moderator of the forum to remove the previous comment. The poster clearly has no idea what he is talking about, and his smearing of Branch Rickey, one of the most admirable men in the history of professional sports, is truly disgusting.

How about this. You get the Dodgers back, but we get to rename the Giants the San Francisco Seals, after the old Pacific Coast League franchise those east-coast interlopers displaced. Then we move the A’s to Santa Clara County, a place with the money for a stadium that’s not too far away from Oakland’s current fan base. Everybody’s happy. Except, of course, the people of Los Angeles… which is exactly the way this Northern Californian likes it.

You are correct, it was Mr. Ricky’s former partner, Walter O’Malley who got the sweet deal. Mr. O’Malley bought out Mr. Ricky in 1950 for just over one million dollars. However it does not change the fact that the Dodgers, unlike any other ball team, own their own stadium and that make moving them back to Brooklyn a tough sell.

Citi is in no way soulless, it’s a great place to play a game, and the mets may he having problems now, but it’s not like the team hasn’t been awful and struggled before, and they’ve always come back better than ever

Citi Field is indeed in Queens. The article doesn’t say it’s in Brooklyn. Just talking about the other local NY ballpark. I think you can contract one team and rearrange the schedules- if not then get rid of the A’s or Rays, whichever doesn’t get LA.

Yeah, I’m a dummy. I commented after only reading the first half. I thought the article was insinuating that the Dodgers should move to citi field. But, as long as we’re offing the Mets, why not put the Dodgers there? I actually like the park and the rotunda is already named for Jackie Robinson.

The contraction would have to be 2 teams in the same league. But there is no reason to contract the Mets. New York City supported the Yanks, Dodgers, and Giants during the great depression. If they can support 3 teams then, they definitely can support 3 teams now. Also, the Angels will object to another American league team in the Los Angeles area, so you would have to move a National league team there. Perhaps the Marlins, Twins, or another team that is doing poorly financially.

Actually you don’t need an even number of teams in each league, not if you spread out the interleague games. I’ve never seen why those games have to be bunched together as “interleague week.” Maybe when it was first a novel concept, but not anymore.